About the Training School

Hello fellow adventurers,


today I wanted to tell you a bit about the training school that I went to for a week as a mandatory element of the CC Au Pair programme and for my Visa. Arriving at the school has been quite a shock! The buildings here are extremely run-down, the rooms are dirty, the sheets have spots and holes on them. Disgusting, right? Aside from that first shock on the first night here, somehow all of us here survived the night and woke up reeaaally early because of the time difference.

Here are some impressions:

My room

Lounge with horrible WIFI

St. Josephs Hall

Classes here start at 8am and you talk about child diseases, safety, ages and stages etc. You even get a special work book that has basically everything in it that you need. The stuff you have to talk about to your families, tips for you, what to do in case of an emergency and so on and so forth. (I might do a seperate post about that book later!)

Classroom

On Thursday you do a first aid course the first half of the day and then we're going to do the NYC tour and go on top of the Rockefeller Center for the view. (It's Wednesday night as I write this, so I wasn't there yet).
On the first day of class, a staff member came in and gave out notes that said that certain people's hostfamilies have purchased a surprise for them. This is it:

You get a bright pink CC bag with different goodies in it. The NYC trip ticket, a Starbucks giftcard, a giftcard for the school's snack shop as well as a drinking bottle, picture frame, a I <3 NY shirt and NY post cards. Some people had more or other things in ther bags, though. But you also get an individual note from your family. I was almost in tears as I read it and opened the bag. I would have never assumed that I'd get a “surprise”, but it just reassured me that I made the right decision with my hostfamily and participating in this programme after all.


The food here is, not to anyone's surprise, very … American, but edible. You get Pizza, Burritos, Chicken fingers etc.
One thing I see here a lot is that everyone has formed a group of people that speak the same language, which isn't a bad thing. I did it to. It gives you a sense of security and belonging, which you long for when you're alone in a brand new country with 200 people who are in the same boat.
I can only speak for my clique but after class we just magically find to each other like magnets and go to eat in the cafeteria. We go to the local grocery store and/or talk talk talk all night. I know that on Friday it is gonna be very hard to say bye bye to them or most of them as some live very near me. Isn't it funny how fast you find people who you relate to so much that you develop somewhat deep friendships, different from any acquaintances you make in other situations in life, where at least I can only develop superficial relationships with people in such a short time. But it happened, thanks baby Jesus.


This is it for today! I promise I'll be posting more frequently, now that I have more material to talk about!
Stay awesome,

Ellie